Canada's Proposed Express Entry Overhaul for 2026: What Would Actually Change for FSW, CEC and the FSTP
It is not law. That’s the single most important sentence in any discussion of this Express Entry merger proposal for 2026, so it goes first, before any of the detail that follows makes the idea sound more settled than it is.
Between 23 April and 24 May 2026, IRCC ran a public consultation on reforming its Federal High Skilled programs and the Comprehensive Ranking System. The discussion paper it published lays out merging federal skilled worker, CEC and FSTP explained as a single change with several moving parts, not a done deal with an effective date attached.
What the paper actually proposes
Three separate federal economic programmes currently run under Express Entry: the Federal Skilled Worker Program, the Canadian Experience Class, and the Federal Skilled Trades Program, each with its own entry criteria. The consultation paper proposes folding all three into one. A proposed single federal high skilled program requirements list would replace them: a Canadian high-school-equivalent education, CLB or NCLC 6 in all four language abilities, and one year of cumulative TEER 0–3 skilled work experience, acquired in Canada or abroad.
What would disappear if this happened
The Federal Skilled Worker Program’s 67-point selection grid — the older, separate scoring test FSW candidates currently have to clear before CRS even applies — would go. So would the Federal Skilled Trades Program’s requirement for a certificate of qualification or a job offer. Both are specific hurdles unique to their current programmes, and both are named directly in the paper as things the merger would remove.
What would come back, in a different form
The paper proposes reviving CRS points for a valid job offer — gone since 25 March 2025 — but only for jobs on a high-wage occupation list, benchmarked at 2×, 1.5× or 1.3× the national median wage depending on the occupation. It frames this explicitly as a way to reintroduce job-offer points while managing the fraud risk that caused their removal in the first place. It also floats widening the LMIA exemption for lower-risk offers, and adding recognition for Canadian licences in regulated occupations.
Is the Express Entry merger proposal already law?
No, and this is worth stating plainly because consultation papers get shared online in ways that blur that line. Implementing any of this requires amendments to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Regulations and to the Ministerial Instructions — a formal regulatory process, not a policy IRCC can simply switch on. No implementation date has been set. IRCC has also explicitly excluded the category-based selection system from this particular consultation, so none of it touches how categories currently work.
What to actually do with this, right now
Nothing changes today because of this 2026 Express Entry program merger proposal. The three current programmes — FSW, CEC, FSTP — still operate exactly as they did before the consultation, under their existing rules. The sensible response is to note the direction of travel and keep applying under the system as it actually stands, checking back for a formal regulatory announcement before assuming a merged programme, a CLB 6 minimum, or high-wage job-offer points apply to you.
Cape2Canada’s free Express Entry Explained guide describes how the three current federal programmes work today, which is what still governs any application filed now.